


Imaginary Friend

by Apparentlynotreallyfinnish



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Imaginary friend!Rhett, M/M, Only a hint of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21670450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apparentlynotreallyfinnish/pseuds/Apparentlynotreallyfinnish
Summary: Link doesn't have many friends growing up. He'd rather spend time alone. Or as he puts it, spend time with his best friend Rhett. The only problem is, no one else can see him.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	Imaginary Friend

**Author's Note:**

> This is a silly AU I’ve had in my mind for a while and I was thinking of doing a chaptered fic of it. But I think I’ll probably never get to it since I have about seven other chaptered fic ideas that interest me more. I still wanted to bring it to life somehow. So I made it into a little fic.

Link was a peculiar child. When other boys gathered in packs to run and play together, Link seemed to enjoy spending his time alone in his room or in the forests lining the Cape Fear River. For a long while, his mother tried to get him to make some friends. Link always made an effort to do so when his mother encouraged him, but after a while, he was alone again.

Although, according to Link, he wasn’t alone. He had a friend. A best friend. 

At first, his mother thought it was cute. An imaginary friend. That was perfectly normal and surely an indication of a vivid imagination. But as the years went on and Link kept talking about Rhett as if he was someone Link could actually see and talk to, Sue got worried. He took Link to a professional after another. When after the fifth one, Link stopped talking about Rhett, his mother didn’t take it as a win. She was sure that Link still saw him.

She was right. Rhett had been there Link’s whole life. He had no memory of a time when Rhett hadn’t existed for him. Rhett was always the same age as him – well, a year older as he always remembered to obnoxiously correct Link – but Link knew that he wasn’t the same as other people. Rhett couldn’t interact with the world around him. He couldn’t touch or taste or smell anything, and sometimes he just disappeared and when he came back and Link asked where he’d went Rhett couldn’t answer him. For the longest time, Link thought that everyone had their own version of Rhett.

When it finally dawned on him that his Rhett was an anomaly, it was too late. His mother had already carted him off to a psychologist. The first one was an old man with round glasses and deep frown lines on his forehead. He regarded Link over the thin frames of his glasses and asked him again and again: “But you do realize Rhett is not real, right?”

It made Link angry. Of course, Rhett was real. He wasn’t like other people, yes, but he was real to Link, and that’s what mattered to him. After the bespectacled man, there was a stern-looking woman in a suit. After her, a grandma looking older woman with a soft smile. Then a young man in jeans that tried to convince Link that they were buddies. And all of them wanted Link to say Rhett wasn’t real. So, eventually, he did. He didn’t believe it, but at least, his mom stopped taking him to shrinks.

Rhett was as real to him as other kids were. When they were little, they played together and kept each other company when Link’s mom was at work. They mapped out the forests surrounding Link’s home and swam in the river. They collected pretty rocks and built campsites. They ran around the pastures and jumped over cows. They stayed up late and talked about important things like whether they liked Link’s mom’s new boyfriend and what was the best Capri sun flavor – though, Rhett couldn’t really take part in the voting of that and he just agreed with Link’s choice.

Rhett was there for Link when he was afraid. When it was dark, and the stormy skies were torn open with the sound of the thunder – Link hated the sound of it, it made his skin crawl and his throat close up – they hid under Link’s covers, and Rhett sang to him in a low soothing voice or told him wild stories about aliens and astronauts. With Rhett, Link felt safe.

They fought too. Angry words were exchanged often enough and sometimes after their arguments, Rhett was gone for hours. But he always came back, and they apologized and were soon laughing about how ridiculous the fight had been.

When they grew up, and Link got his license, they spent most of their time in the car. They chose a direction at random, blasted the radio and just drove aimlessly. Rhett would sit on the passenger’s seat, his impossibly long legs propped against the dashboard, hand hanging out the open window with a wide smile on his face. 

Link kept stealing glances at him, feeling a strange fluttering in his stomach. And then Rhett would turn to look at him, eyes twinkling with happiness and the pure freedom of their world, and Link’s heart would ache from the need to reach over and touch his hair. _Just once_ , he pleaded silently, _let me run my fingers through his curls just once, and I will be happy forever_.

When Link got his first girlfriend, Rhett teased him mercilessly, following them on their first date and whispering such naughty things into Link’s ears that he spent the whole date red in his face and hard in his pants. There was no kiss goodnight. Link blamed Rhett. 

“You were distracting me, man!” he moaned when they got back home.

Rhett just laughed and crawled into their bed. The barrage of filth continued after Link turned off the lights and the night ended with a panting Link with his hand around his cock next to Rhett who was egging him on in a low, honeyed voice. 

Link broke up with the girl soon after. It felt like too much of a hassle. He had Rhett. He didn’t need anyone else. Rhett didn’t say anything, but Link had an inkling that he was happy with Link’s decision.

After high school, Link got into his first-choice college. He was excited, couldn’t stop talking about how he wanted to immerse himself into the whole college experience. Rhett didn’t seem as enthusiastic. When Link asked him about it, he just shrugged and said it would be boring to sit at the lectures with him. That seemed strange to Link since Rhett had sat in all of his high school classes as well and never complained, but he put it out of his mind.

They moved into a dorm. At first, it was weird to share a space with a stranger, but Gregg turned out to be a great guy and quickly became Link’s close friend. The downside of it was that it became increasingly hard to talk with Rhett. He became quieter and quieter as the semester went on. He kept disappearing more often, and when he came back, he always seemed a bit dazed and confused. Later, Link realized he should have been more worried about that, but at the time he only had space in his head for classes and parties. And guys.

It had finally dawned on Link that the reason he hadn’t actually wanted to kiss his girlfriend was because she was, in fact, a girl. Guys instead… There were more than one of those in college that he wouldn’t have minded kissing – or more. 

When he told Rhett about his discovery, he just rolled his eyes and scoffed “took you long enough”. It irritated Link. It was a big deal for him. A revelation that made him feel more like himself – more comfortable in his own skin and more confident as well. And Rhett just shrugged and went on with his half-existence as if nothing significant had happened.

They fought about it. Link cried with anger and hurt at Rhett’s indifference. Rhett sneered at him and said things that cut deeps wounds into Link’s heart. Rhett was gone long after that – days. When he came back, he seemed changed somehow. Almost like he was more wispy, flickering at the edges. They apologized to each other and spent the day going on silly adventures around the city. It almost felt like the good old days and Link promised himself that he would make more of an effort to include Rhett into his new life.

But then Link got a boyfriend. He was a cute little brunette, the singer of a punk band and he made Link feel bubbly and ashamedly turned on at inconvenient times. The relationship escalated soon from kissing to all kinds of touching, and in the excitement of it all, Link forgot Rhett for a while. 

After one particularly heated date, Link came back to their dorm room and found Rhett pacing around the room. Thrilled to have someone to share all these new feelings with, Link immediately dove to a play-by-play of his amazing night. 

He was jerked back when Rhett stopped in the middle of the room, tugged his hair with both of his hands and screamed, “Shut up!”

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Link asked startled and annoyed. “You’ve been acting so strange lately…”

Rhett’s shoulders slumped, and his arms dropped to hang limply at his sides.

“Don’t you get it?” he whispered, agony in his voice so sharp it almost cut Link’s heart in half.

“What?” Link asked, terrified of the answer.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’m way overdue,” Rhett said with a deep sigh and sat on the couch. Link walked up to him and sat next to him. His legs were trembling, and a deep dark dread had settled into his stomach. 

“Don’t say that. Please. I need you.” 

“No, you don’t,” Rhett said with a hollow laugh. “That’s the problem. You stopped needing me ages ago. You wanna know why I’m still here, though?”

“Why?”

“Because _I_ need you. Because I _love_ you. Because I want to be the man you come home to. The man you imagine alone at night when you go to bed. The man who waits for you at the coffee cart before the morning class just so that he can walk with you for five minutes before you have to go your separate ways. I want to be the man to kiss you, to hold you, to make love to you. I wanna be yours.”

Link stared at Rhett through a film of tears. He lifted his feet on the couch and hugged his legs – a vain effort to keep himself from falling apart. 

“I want that too…” he whispered, swallowing down a sob. “Rhett, I _love_ you, but…”

Rhett whipped his head back and let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob.

“But… Isn’t that the thing, though? Gosh. Our whole lives… There has always been that. _But._ But I can’t. But I’m not. But I won’t. I love you but… I want you but…”

Link’s fingers dug into his legs. He ached all over. He had never in his life wanted to touch Rhett more than now. He wanted to gather him in his arms. Wanted to kiss his tears away. Wanted to pet his hair and kiss his temple. Wanted to make everything okay again.

“Rhett…” 

Rhett took a shuddering breath. “I need to go. I need to… Link, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I held on this long. It was selfish of me.”

“No, please! _Please_ , don’t. I don’t know what I’ll… I can’t be without you! Who am I without you? Nothing. A half of something. Please, Rhett. Don’t leave me.” Link said crying with violent sobs that wracked his trembling body.

“You’re Link. You’re smart and funny and dumb as a doorknob but in the most adorable way. You flirt without even realizing it, and everyone who’s graced by your presence is enchanted by your energy and positivity. You’re perfect as you are. You don’t need me.”

“Please… Not yet.”

Rhett bit his lip and sniffled. He was silent for a long time before whispering, “Okay. I’ll stay for one more night.”

It wasn’t enough, but it was more than nothing. They crawled into bed and settled their heads on Link’s pillow, noses so close there was an illusion of them actually touching each other. They talked. They reminisced about all the shenanigans they got into as kids. They reminded each other of memories, of nights spent in Link’s room listening to records, of days spent on the open roads, of evenings at the river. They talked late into the night, and Link valiantly fought the sleep that hung heavy over him. 

“You’re barely conscious anymore,” Rhett chuckled when Link’s lids slipped closed once again.

“No, I’m fine. A little while longer.”

“Go to sleep, bo.”

“No.”

“I won’t be gone in the morning,” Rhett tried to coax him. Link scoffed.

“You’re lying.”

“I am,” Rhett admitted.

“Prick,” Link said with a smile.

“Jerk,” Rhett replied with a smile of his own.

“I love you,” Link whispered, voice cracking.

“I love you more,” Rhett said, eyes glimmering with tears. 

“Not possible,” Link mumbled before falling asleep.

—

Link was woken up by the irritating clangor of his alarm. His hand shot to silence it and then moved over the bed as if in search of something – or someone. The bed was empty. Link opened his eyes and a rush of worry crashed through him. He stared at the empty space between him and the wall and shook his head. Had he dreamt that someone was there? 

He dragged himself up and slowly started his morning routine. He felt tired as hell and had no idea why. He was sure he’d gone to bed on time. Why did he feel like he’d been up half the night? 

The rest of the week was strange too. Every once in a while Link would hear something amusing or exciting or just downright stupid, and he’d turn to his side and open his mouth as if he was about comment on it. The empty air beside him always felt like a slap to his face. Who was he trying to talk to? He had no idea. 

Eventually, that stopped happening, but what was left behind was a peculiar feeling of something missing. Link felt slightly off-kilter, unfinished and oddly sad as if he was missing something he’d never had. Despite the feeling, Link went on with his life, explaining it away as something every young adult felt. It was hard to figure out who you were and where you belonged in the world. Who wouldn’t feel a bit incomplete?

After Christmas break, Link was full of vigor and excitement for the new semester. He came to the first class of the year way too early, determined to get a good seat this time. There was only one other person in the room. He sat in the middle row, wearing a red hoodie, hair in perfect dirty blonde curls. The guy lifted his head when Link walked in and turned to look at him. Link’s heart skipped a beat, and he stopped mid-step.

“Hey,” the guy said with a curious frown.

“Hey,” Link answered. 

“Do I know you from somewhere?” they asked in unison and burst into amazed laughter. The guy was gorgeous: twinkly green eyes and a smile that took Link’s breath away. He got up and offered Link his hand.

“Hi, I’m Rhett.”

Link shook his hand and forgot to let go. They stood there for a while, holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes. Link felt warm all over - warm and safe. A door banged open behind Link making him jump and let go. 

“Link. My name is Link,” he finally muttered back.

“Wanna sit here?” Rhett asked and pointed next to his seat. Link nodded and settled down next to Rhett.

“So, that was strange,” Rhett said, sitting almost sideways, staring at Link with unabashed marvel.

“Yeah,” Link said, returning the gaze without making any effort to hide the blush that had turned his cheeks bright red.

“We should probably figure that out. Wanna get coffee after the class?” Rhett asked looking so hopeful Link almost kissed him right then and there. 

Link felt something shift inside him, like pieces of a puzzle moving and clicking into place. He felt complete again – somehow made whole by the smiling giant of a man next to him. It left him feeling faint and heated to his core. 

“Sounds good,” Link answered finally and without really thinking about it, took Rhett’s hand in his own, interlacing their fingers. Rhett stared at their hands for a beat, looking as surprised as Link felt. But then he smiled, and somehow Link knew that he’d be seeing that smile for the rest of his life.


End file.
